Woman are Key to Peace

It has been known in anthropology for some time that the more power young men have in a society, the more warlike it is. There is in fact a threshold of young male population after which wars are all but inevitable. Having a society where older males and women as a group outnumber young men is good for peace.

Girls with just one year of formal education are less likely to suffer from illness or hunger and are more likely to avoid teen pregnancy, and their children are less likely to die in infancy. Microfinance loans for women entrepreneurs build more stable communities, because they invest proceeds in their families and communities.

As Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said: “Women and girls are one of the world’s greatest untapped resources. Remember the proverb, ‘Give a man a fish, and he’ll eat for a day, teach a man to fish, and he’ll eat for a lifetime?’ Well, if you teach a woman to fish, she’ll feed the whole village.”